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From the Costa Concordia disaster, Petraeus scandal and movie theater massacre to President Obama’s re-election, Kate’s baby news and “Gangnam Style,” here’s a look at the biggest stories of the year in 90 seconds. (Published Thursday, Dec. 27, 2012)

Whitney Houston led Google’s list of top searches for 2012, according to the search engine’s end-of-the-year “zeitgeist” report.

Coming in second place in overall search was Psy's k-pop video "Gangnam Style," which has surpassed 900 million views on YouTube. Rounding out the top five searches were Hurricane Sandy, iPad 2 and Diablo 3.

This year’s results were the most global to date, Google said. There are a total of 838 lists from 55 countries. The 2012 Zeitgeist website also includes an interactive map that illustrate where the trends occurred around the world. There will also be a Google Zeitgeist Android app launching later today, followed by an iOS version.

The list is also broken down by categories. While some Olympic athletes trended in the top 10, it was Jeremy Lin who topped the athlete's list at No. 1 for his seven-game winning streak with the New York Knicks.

2012's Most Powerful Photos

Boy band sensation One Direction was No.1 in Google Image searches and "The Hunger Games" was the most search movie. Fan-fiction-turned-bestseller "Fifty Shades of Grey" was the most searched book.

Google's list also tells a story of a politically charged election year. People searched for a range of political and legislative topics that include SOPA, ACTA, election candidates, issues and political gaffes like Big Bird and binders full of women.

Google analyzed an aggregation of over one trillion searches that users typed into Google Search to compile the list. Data came from Google Trends and other internal data tools.